Thursday, September 1, 2016

Tradition:
Obama has renewed
the 2001 “state of emergency” for yet another year – making it
16 years now we've been at war with a technique while sending arms
and support to the people behind 911. But it's not so much about
terrorism as it is about the executive
privileges that the “emergency” gives the guy in the Oval Office.
And it keeps the money flowing.

Vive
La France!France's
PM Manuel
Valls says
that naked
breasts represent France better than a headscarf could.
And
here I thought it was wine, a baguette and 286 types of cheese.

Our
Gangsters:US
Special Operations Forces presence
in Latin
America tripled between 2007 and 2014. It
was
"the golden age of secret operations “ aimed
at "gaining
regional access with a minimal footprint”. Why?
Is Nicaragua going to attack us? Ecuador?

Gag
Me
Him:Lamar
Smith (R-Exxon/Mobil),
will hold a hearing focusing on
the First Amendment rights of fossil fuel corporations, their
right to lie to us while killing us slowly.

The
Dog Ate My....
In Seattle, thousands of police dashcam videos have mysteriously
disappeared “due to a computer glitch.”

The
Landscape:
Following the
Hillary sweep, the Dems will probably control a majority in the
Senate, but not enough to be filibuster-proof. They will not take
control of the House. The Republicans will still control most of the
states. And the people who voted for Trump will be even more pissed
off and ready to support the next demagogue. This will be called a
victory.

Teaching
Point:
Health care is a right, not a business, not a profit opportunity.
Making a profit from the sick is... sick.

One
Not-So-Fell Swoop:
The current kerfuffle
over how much money insurerers are supposed to make from sick people
may well lead to the widespread availability
of the “public option” where everyone can pay a fair premium to
the government (and be subsidized
to do so if they are poor) to gain access to what will essentially be
Medicare for all. This will simply doom the insurance companies.
Boo hoo.

Dead
Heat:
Instead of banning
burkinis, perhaps
France – and the rest of the supposedly civilized world – should
ban the
wearing of suits. Men
in suits are
the real terrorists.

The
Joke's On Us:
Remember when the nations of the world promised to limit global
warming to 1.5°C? Well, they did. For almost a year. The 1.5C is
already locked in and they haven't even begun to do anything yet.
And they won't, because corporate profits are far more important than
the lives of your children. Remember the old line about “it'll get
worse before it gets better”? Sorry, it is going to get much worse
and it won't get better for a few thousand years.

Bleak
Houses:
Northern Russia – Siberia – is warming at twice the pace as the
rest of the world. Massive sinkholes have become common as the
permafrost stops being 'perma'. Methane is literally bubbling up
from the tundra. Smallpox, anthrax and other viruses are being
released. And we thought the cold and
ice of the Gulag was
scary.

Zero
Sum:
Capitalism and democracy are absolute enemies. We cannot have both,
and capitalism (in the guise of globalization) is
winning.

6 comments:

Absolutely brilliant work [as always!] Landscape is prescient; sadly it will take a few more election cycles before the public figures out there aren't any democrats!

Teaching point is also 'spot on' made that much more chilling due to the 'coincidence' of 'Morning in America' and the 'privatization' of the healthcare system by the Republicans. [And they all think Ronnie was a Saint!]

When will people smarten up and recognize it's not going to get better. They'll pile the dead and dying up in the streets before they 'give away' healthcare! Take that to the bank! [This is how crippled and broken capitalism has become!]

Leading us to your final point, one the people appreciate more than we may realize, that capitalism in the enemy of democracy [and we can add 'competition' to the enemies list as well.

But they will bring back Minarchy and Slavery before they abandon capitalism...and that's one to chew on. How bad do you want it?

ah, the sound of "Profits over People." Ayn Rand and American Exceptionalism. the American Flag, Pledge of Allegiance and all those "symbols." like someone said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels."

somethings never change. just watch how hot it has to get before "something" is done about the Climate.

«thousands of police dashcam videos have mysteriously disappeared “due to a computer glitch.»

That can only have happened if there were no backups, and if there were no backups the chief of IT should be fired for negligence. If s/he is not fired, there was no accident.

Anyhow I have been recently reminded by another "glitch", a much bigger one: on 2001-09-10 the DOD announced for the next day a press conference on the inability of the DOD auditors to find to whom 2.8 trillion dollars had been paid and for what, and on 2001-09-11 a plane fell just on the wing of the Pentagon in which accounting records are kept. Amazing "glitches" in America :-).

BTW that was 2.3 trillion of transactions, that is a *gross* amount (the same payment can give rise to several internal transactions). The net amount paid was considerably lower, but still huge.

The reason the transactions went missing was apparently a computer "glitch" in transferring the transaction logs between different computer systems.

More recently the total of transactions for which there is no record because of computer "glitches" has risen to 6.5 trillions.

One organization that surely knows where the money ultimately went is the Federal Reserve, as they handle all electronic payments and are the government's bankers, but they are very discreet :-). Plus the NSA which surely get a copy of all payment entries from the Federal Reserve and from SWIFT in London (the latter is even a matter of public record). They are even more discreet :-).

Our Motto

Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.